WHAT'S WRONG WITH GRASS LAWNS?

Grass Lawns and the Lack of Biodiversity

That feeling of getting woken up at 8 am on the weekends to your neighbors mowing their lawn, the smell of freshly cut grass, and the look of the symmetrical lawn stripes that signal a perfect yard are probably some of the most nostalgic memories for suburban families. However, while the lawn might look nice and make a great area to play sports or lie down and sunbathe, they also come with consequences for biodiversity.

What Is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity means a wide variety of all living things on Earth, including plants, fungi, animals, every microbe, and bacteria. A wide variety of living things helps support a wide variety of ecosystems as well, helping create a stable planet. When biodiversity begins to lessen, things like clean air, food, water, and protection from the climate begin to fail. Many environmental issues, like excess carbon in the atmosphere and greenhouse gases, can be solved with greater biodiversity. 

Grass Lawns and Biodiversity

Grass lawns do not help promote biodiversity; in fact, they act as deserts. They consist of a single type of grass, which doesn't offer food, like pollen, nectar, or seeds, for smaller animals or nesting places for birds and other critters to shelter. Other insects such as monarch butterflies rely on milkweed to survive. Milkweed is native to the Americas; however, its population has declined drastically due to grass lawns and urbanisation. 

Additionally, the constant maintenance needed often translates into pesticides, not letting native wildflowers grow, and removing fallen leaves, which eliminates winter shelters for bugs like fireflies and other insects. 

This translates into a disrupted food chain. When bugs and pollinators like bees and butterflies migrate or disappear from the area due to lack of food or proper shelter, local birds, frogs, and small mammals lose their primary food source. This causes a collapse up the food chain, and suddenly you might not hear birds singing in the morning or frogs and crickets at night. 

What Can You Do To Help?

Thankfully, the solution to this is pretty simple. Try to reduce your mowing frequency and let your grass grow just a little longer to give animals a place to shelter from rain and wind. Additionally, stopping pesticide use greatly reduces chemical runoff when it rains and is less poisonous to animals. 

Planting wildflower seeds in your yard takes only one hour of your day, and in the end you’ll have a bunch of pretty flowers in a couple of weeks; just make sure the flowers are native to your area to attract animals. 

If you want to take it one step further, plant a garden and get rid of your grass lawn altogether. Support your local wildlife, reduce your pollution, and you’ll be rewarded with an aesthetic garden and less maintenance.